Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

JK Rowling based her Casual Vacancy character on me, says man who set author on the road to riches

JK Rowling invented a character called Barry Fairbrother for The Casual
Vacancy - but is the name a jokey reference to the editor who made her name?

Barry Cunningham was the editor
who published the first Harry Potter book by JK Rowling Photo: REX
FEATURES

By Anita Singh and Gaby
Wood - The Telegraph

Opening her new novel with the death of a pivotal character is a fine way for
JK Rowling to grab the reader’s attention.

For one man, it is also strangely personal. Barry Cunningham, the editor who
published the first Harry Potter book, believes that the character of Barry
Fairbrother is based on him and is Rowling’s joky way of “killing off” links to
her past as a children’s author.

“I can’t believe it’s a coincidence,” he said of Rowling’s choice of name for
Barry, a parish councillor whose death triggers a bitter local
election.“To have your early editor disposed of in your first adult book
can hardly be an accident.”

Cunningham said he believed the death symbolises “leaving your editor behind
as you move to adult books”.
Not that he is offended - Cunningham said he felt “honoured” and amused to be
acknowledged by the author he discovered when she was a struggling single
mother.

Rowling had been turned down by a dozen publishers when Cunningham, then an
editor at Bloomsbury, read the manuscript of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone in 1996 and decided to take a chance.
She was paid a £1,500 advance. The seven-book series went on to sell 450
million copies and earn Rowling an estimated £620 million fortune.
Rowling has said: “If it wasn’t for Barry Cunningham, Harry Potter might
still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs. I doubt any of the
writers with whom he has worked could be more grateful to him.”
Cunningham left Bloomsbury in 2000 and now runs his own company, Chicken
House, which publishes children’s books. He was awarded an OBE in 2010.death symbolises “leaving your editor behind as
you move to adult books”.More at The Telegraph